Can't Buy Me Love (1987)

Prior to the release of Enchanted and Made Of Honor I had never heard of Patrick Dempsey, and I'd never seen Grey's Anatomy, so I figured Dempsey was another "it" guy in the new batch of romantic comedy actors, but as it appears he's been in the business for quite sometime. Can't Buy Me Love is one of Dempsey's popular early films, made in the great teen comedy decade of the 1980's which has spawned a massive amount of classic films. Can't Buy Me Love is among the favored teen romantic comedies of the 80's and receives a lot of love, but it also helped to bring nationwide recognition to an actress who suddenly dropped off the face of the earth which has created some quite interesting rumors.

Can't Buy Me Love is the famed storyline of the transformation from "geek to chic", as Ronald Miller (Patrick Dempsey) gets the opportunity he's been waiting for his entire life, to become popular. Amanda Peterson is Cindy Mancini, the school's drop dead gorgeous head cheerleader and most popular student, but she doesn't know Ronald Miller exists. But that's all about to change when Cindy's in a jam and Ronald provides her with a solution, he'll give her $1000 if she'll pretend to like him and hang out with him for a month. Without many other options Cindy reluctantly agrees, but truly doubts how being seen with her will turn Ronald's popularity around.

She's soon about to discover how shallow her friends are, as being seen with her turns Ronald's life upside down. Soon everyone's eating out of Ronald's hand, and Cindy is actually beginning to enjoy being around him. But Ronald's newly discovered popularity gets the best of him as he loses focus on why he made the deal in the first place, to get closer to Cindy. Now he's managed to alienate his old friends and push Cindy away without even noticing. Ronald thought his life was bad when he was invisible; now wait until he becomes an outcast.

Can't Buy Me Love is an entertaining look at the long time rivalry between nerd and jock, frankly I think these films always embellish the gap between the two groups as well as the groups themselves, but it still makes for an entertaining story. Dempsey and Peterson both play their parts extremely well and helps to make Can't Buy Me Love fit nicely in the mix as one of the better romantic comedies of the 80's, and definitely overshadows much of what we see in the genre today. The rest of the cast is quite medicore and corny but Dempsey and Peterson help to overshadow the rest of the cast, but keep your eyes open for a very young Seth Green, who plays Ronald's brother, he's quite funny.

What I found most interesting was some of the back-story on the two main actors. This film seemed to be a big break for Amanda Peterson who played Cindy, although after this film and a handful of other TV and film roles Amanda seemingly disappeared just as quickly as she appeared. All anyone seems to know is she's either happily married somewhere with three kids or is a drug addict in jail. As for Dempsey, he seemed to turn out alright and has made himself a decent career for himself, but did you know that in 1987 (when this film was made) at the age of 21 he married a 48 year old woman (who was his best friend's mom!) it only lasted about seven years but I still, that's quite strange. A bit of strange info I found when I looked up the two actors, which I thought were quite interesting, but do yourself a favor and check the film out!

8/10